making xampp live for online

[AuDiObLiViOuS 1]

i used to know this a million years ago but can someone refresh my memory please

i have the domain name registered audioblivious.net my question is how do i point my xampp to it

thanks guys in advance i know this is simple but im coming up blank

[JJ_Tagy]

Beyond the scope of the product and this forum. However, you don’t point XAMPP at the domain name. Instead, you point your domain name at your IP.

[AVLien]

Damn it, wrote you a novel about this last night and forgot to post it, then my session expired.

The TL;DR was that there are a few ways to accomplish this, but no good ones. Your best bet will probably be a "shared hosting" plan. The reasons I say this are twofold:

1. Security: There are a lot of moving parts in a web server. For an example, toss this in your search bar while you're in your XAMPP folder:

   Code: Select all

   ext:.ini OR ext:.conf OR ext:.properties OR ext:.xml

   each of those is a settings file which itself contains quite a few settings (& there are actually more than that which do not have extensions or have proprietary extensions).
   
   Being unaware of how the stack was set up means you may be leaving some glaring security holes. XAMPP is meant to be a testing and development stack, not a live publicly accessible production web server. If you are running it all in your host OS (as opposed to a virtualized OS), you are exposing your machine to a potential maelstrom of attackers. This would be inviting disaster and leaving a key out for it. If you really want to do this, and you have a good reason for it, at least use a virtualized server OS (CentOS is my go-to) so you isolate your own data from potential attacks.
   
   
2. It's a huge hassle: In addition to the security concerns, the aforementioned example (see code block above) also highlights the underlying complexity of setting up and maintaining server even with a prebuilt turnkey stack. Is it really worth $10 a month do deal with all that headache?
   
   Unless you're a glutton for punishment/frustration/intricacy (I once installed Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Edition on a 2010 MacBook Pro just for fun, and I've been involved in web development—including server administration—for decades so I know what I'm talking about), get a shared web host. If you really like to tinker, get a managed VPS. Both of those options should include support, backup, and the ability to set up your DNS records easily. Additionally, with managed hosting, if you really trash the thing they can just spin you up a new server with default settings so you don't have to untrash it yourself. Backups and snapshots are obviously a better option, but the net will be there if you fall (so to speak).

There are a few other reasons not to do this. One is simply that you probably don't have a static IP address because ISPs intentionally rotate them periodically to keep people from all running their own web server from home because you have to pay extra for that (they would probably give you some explanation about "security"). In addition to that, and all of the other reasons I mentioned above, I haven't even touched on the router setup (port forwarding, etc). It's hard enough to do this all the wrong way and "just get it working", but it's borderline insanity to try and do it correctly/securely/safely without investing some serious time in understanding the inner workings of an AMPP stack.

If you absolutely must:
Your OS
Look at running CentOS or maybe Ubuntu in a VM (Hyper-V if you have Windows 10 Pro or better, but VMWare or VirtualBox are good too) unless you have an old laptop or something you can use. The goal here is isolation. They are both developed specifically to be used as server OSes, so it's much easier to set them up securely. Windows works against you sometimes this way because all of this software is ported from Linux code and (again) Microsoft wants you to pay more to run a proper server OS so they don't do you a lot of favors in setting one up. That also means that doing so will always involve a little bit of hackery...which also means (I know: "broken record") that you are likely leaving attack vectors open.

DNS is a problem too, because that needs to be connected to a legit public nameserver. There are services that do this, and even ones that can overcome the IP address rotation ("dynamic DNS" services) if your ISP does that. I use NoIP for this, but you may not be able to use your TLD ("domain name") without shelling out extra monies (if at all).

Your Local Network
You'll also need to forward the ports from the WAN ("internet") to your computer on your LAN if you use a router. This gets exponentially complicated if you need to run a bunch of services (FTP, Tomcat, etc) because you'll need to forward ports for all of their connections individually. This also means that you would be entering addresses with ports (www.example.com:8080), which can't be done with forwarders or any other DNS tricks (by design). Look up "port forwarding for [your router make and model]" because every device does this a little bit differently in it's UI.

Like I said at the beginning...
You probably just want to cough up the $120 or whatever to lock down a managed and/or shared server for a year instead of doing all of this. But, if you're hell-bent on doing it anyway the above info should get you headed in the right direction. But...just so I know for sure this horse is really dead: This is a bad idea unless you know what you're doing and have a good reason to do it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System Administrator.
It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.

—Linux, the first time you sudo

[Nobbie]

Is it really worth $10 a month do deal with all that headache?

+1!!

... and actually, one can already have it for 5$ a month and its still not a bad provider. Agree to everything you said! One BigMac per month....